THE issue between Natasha and Akpabio ought to be manageable if we don’t simply allow our emotions becloud our sense of scrutiny.
First, Natasha erred during a senate session when she was supposed to be speaking from her newly assigned seat, which is not unusual within the House whenever there is defection of member(s) from one party to another. Ideally, she ought to know this.
Secondly, as a senator, when another senator raised the point of order against her, she was supposed to obey first, move to her new seat and maybe complain later if necessary. Whenever you find yourself in an institution, a union, an alma mater group…or any of such, you must respect the regulatory rules there or else quit. What necessitated this problem was he refusal to obey simple House rules.
Without mincing words, Akpabio did not poke her from all we saw; all he did was to uphold the point of order, and while she insisted in talking without being asked to do so, bringing some rancour to the House, Akpabio asked that she should be walked out, which elicited the “I am not afraid of you” rant from her.
The next day, the issues of sexual harassment rented the air. She alleged Akpabio sexually harassed her while she and her husband visited Akpabio in his house during his birthday. We cannot dismiss this claim even if some have fished out such accusations by her against Reno Omokri in time past.
The issue basically is not about dismissing her or supporting her…or even defending Akpabio in this case, the issue is for her to be able to provide evidence, which she said she has in ample quantity. It will amount to a huge fallacy to arrange any type of support for her without evidence. We are not mostly emotional animals who believe without evidence nor are we among those who continue to argue amid volley of evidence.
We must do justice to both of them as reasonable humans, and also do justice to ourselves.
